New chicks

We are not allowed to keep cockerels on our land so we have to buy hatching eggs when any of our hens go broody. This can be quite expensive (the eggs are £2 each) so when we have a whole batch of 12 eggs fail to hatch (4 of the eggs were destroyed in the nest box), we have to look at other ways to raise chicks that is more economical. When the eggs failed to hatch under a broody hen last week, we decided to buy her 10 chicks, average price £5.80 each. All 10 were adopted by the hen and they are all doing well.

We did recently get some hatching eggs in a swap but this is a limited source. The solution will be to find someone who we can supply hatching eggs closer to home for swaps rather than cash. In the meantime, we are giving any new broody hens (we had one yesterday) old eggs which will not be a loss if they are broken and when the incubation period is about to end, we will buy chicks and then give them to the hen, taking away the old eggs. It is not the cheapest of options but it avoids the large losses we have on buying hatching eggs.